CAIRO — In a scheme to break Cairo’s monopoly over literary events and catch readers at the beach, Egypt’s General Egyptian Book Organization (GEBO), the organizer of Egypt’s iconic Cairo International Book Fair, has turned to the country’s coastal towns as new venues for summer book fairs.
The initiative was welcomed by Egypt’s literary and media circles. “A book on the beach is better than one in a store,” read the Sout al-Omma newspaper's headline announcing GEBO’s plan to hold book fairs in several different governorates and resorts throughout the summer.